


When I'm With You

by agentx13



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Endgame fixit, F/M, sharon carter month
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23199883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentx13/pseuds/agentx13
Summary: Sharon Carter returns from the Snap. There's only one place she can think to go.
Relationships: Sharon Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 9
Kudos: 43
Collections: Sharon Carter Month





	When I'm With You

She doesn’t come back with the others. She doesn’t know why. She comes to suspect, but at the time, she doesn’t know. She only knows she has to get to Steve. Her thoughts never go farther than that. She doesn’t let them. She doesn’t dare to think more on it than that.

The world is in uproar, and things aren’t going to calm down quickly. People are returning to find strangers living in their homes. Some spouses have remarried, even had children. The transit system is unprepared for over three billion people suddenly reappearing, to say nothing of the food supply. Pundits take to airwaves to argue that Thanos was right, that they had more before everyone returned. Why should they suffer and share, they argue.

All the people who have disappeared were declared dead. Sharon was declared dead. She doesn’t have to check to know. She was barely alive before the snap. She knows she’s dead now. 

And all she can think is that she has to get to Steve. She doesn’t know why. He can’t make it better. But going through hell with him is better than going through hell without him. She willfully avoids thinking of how she never thought that before, never said it before. Willfully tries not to think if things would be different if she had said it.

She tells herself little lies as she sleeps restlessly in overpacked airports and bus stations. Her job is to protect him – she’s just doing her job. He’s a friend – only a friend. And she only cares about him a friendly amount.

She repeats the lies and invents new ones as she makes her way to Ithaca, where the press is camped out and where no one will let her in. Still, she stands in the crowd, hoping, somehow, that he’ll happen to see her. Will want to talk to her. Will want her to know he’s all right. 

But it doesn’t happen. Not that day, not the next. Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff are dead and mourned – to unequal degrees, she’s disappointed to see. And still she doesn’t hear from him. Doesn’t hear from Sam. Doesn’t hear from Bucky. She understands – they have so much more going on than she does. But it still hurts. She’s been dead inside for so long, and declared officially dead, and yet she’s still there to see firsthand that there’s no one who cares to mourn her.

She doesn’t give up. It isn’t giving up to leave. But she needs a shower and a fresh change of clothes, and she should probably get herself declared alive again, whether she is or not.

The train to Brooklyn doesn’t take as long as she remembers, but trudging up the steps takes forever. She knows she’ll find an empty apartment. Or maybe one that’s already occupied by someone else. Maybe she’s homeless now. She doesn’t know. But she knows she won’t find what she wants, what she wants so badly she won’t even admit it to herself.

It isn’t until she’s at the door that she remembers she doesn’t have the key, that she hadn’t felt right keeping it after another one of their fights and had mailed it back.

She stands there, feeling like an idiot. She could have gone home to Virginia, she realizes. But she hadn’t thought of that. She’d only thought of him. And now she’s outside their former apartment, and Richmond is so far away, and she isn’t sure what she’ll find – if anything – when she gets there. She rests her head against the door. She’s so tired, she thinks. At least when SHIELD fell, she’d had fire in her veins, that gung ho desire to serve and serve better than before. But now… She’d been trained to live like a ghost and she feels like that’s all she is.

She’ll just ask to spend the night, she thinks. Maybe whoever lives there now will pity her and let her move on in the morning. Maybe they’ll let her shower and lend her a change of clothes, maybe even some money.

She’ll survive this. She just needs a little sleep, and she needs to overcome the emptiness in her heart. 

She rouses herself. There’s no emptiness in her heart, she tells herself. And she’s not some silly girl. She’s a former agent of SHIELD. She’s a skilled fugitive. She’ll get on her feet again.

She knocks and waits, mentally trying to keep her silent pep-talk going. She thinks she hears something on the other side, but it’s so quiet that she isn’t sure.

The door is wrenched open, and she only has a glimpse of him, just enough to know not to attack, and then he’s pulled her into the apartment and pinned her to the wall and his mouth crashes against hers and she relaxes for the first time in what feels like years and kisses him back like he’s the only solid thing in a fluid and uncertain world.

It isn’t until he brushes his thumb against her cheeks that she realizes she’s crying, and she realizes that he’s talking between kisses, apologizing and saying he was an idiot.

“I know,” she tells him. “I know.”

He freezes. “You know?”

She nods quickly. Her hands are on his shoulders, her fingers digging into his flesh as if afraid to let him go. “Of course you were an idiot. I don’t care. I mean, I do. But not enough to not care about you.” He stares at her, and she swallows. “I wasn’t great, either.”

“I know,” he says, and there’s a hint of a tease.

They stare at each other for a beat. Both of them know they haven’t always had the smoothest relationship. Just because they are together now – in whatever capacity – doesn’t mean they should stay together.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” she admits. “I went to Ithaca first. But I couldn’t get through to the compound. And then I came here. I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Me, neither,” he admits.

She bites the inside of her lip. “I need a place to stay. Just for tonight.”

Instantly, he’s nothing more and nothing less than a gentleman. He closes the door and locks it. “Of course. I’ll, uh, take the couch. You hungry?”

“Starving,” she admits. 

He nods toward the kitchenette, and she takes a couple steps after him. “I’ll cook something up,” he suggests. “Why don’t you shower and change?”

She grimaces. “That bad, huh?”

He grins at her. “Not bad enough.” And then he catches himself and looks away. Pots clang together. “I mean, if you shower and change, I’ll have everything ready by the time you’re out.”

She wants to stay. There’s a hint of awkwardness in the air that is delicious, or maybe that’s just the promise of food to come. Right. That’s it.

She forces herself to go. She’d surprised him with the Brooklyn safe house years before. Over five years now, she realizes. It was supposed to be a sort of welcome home. But Brooklyn had changed too much and the apartment had only reminded him of that. Of course, everything reminded him of how much everything had changed. And it only makes her wonder why he’s here, in the tiny, one-bedroom apartment. 

Her things are neatly packed in moving boxes in the corner, and she digs out an oversized shirt to sleep in and heads to the bathroom, only realizing there are other boxes when she’s about to step into the shower. Curious, she peeks inside one and finds framed pictures of Aunt Peggy she didn’t realize he had.

She takes a long shower, taking time to soak and think. When she heads back to the kitchenette, she notices the boxes are gone. And there’s a candlelit pasta dinner waiting.

“I didn’t have ingredients for a hamburger,” he says apologetically.

“It’s fine.” He pulls her chair out from her and sits across from her.

“I’m sorry about Natasha and Tony.”

He nods his acknowledgment, and they sit in silence. She notices he’s left wine on the counter. Not pushing her to have some, just making a silent point that it’s there if she’d like it.

“We can’t do this, Steve. Not- we both have to work on things. The things that we fought about are still…” She shrugs. “Still fresh for me? Still here.” She motions to the apartment with her hands, but it isn’t just the apartment. It’s the whole world.

He shakes his head. “I was an idiot.” He holds up his hand. “I know. You know. I saw Peggy. And you were right. I was trying to live in the past. I kept trying to live in the past. And I- I can’t do that anymore. I don’t know how to stop yet, but I kept thinking that if I could just go back to when the world was simpler, I’d be happy. But I wasn’t. I couldn’t be. I was idealizing some imaginary version of Peggy, an imaginary version of the world I came from. I was wrong. And I was wrong to drag you into it.”

She takes her time as she chews. “I wasn’t exactly unwilling,” she says slowly. “I think I was an idiot, too.”

He makes a face. “You know I can’t say anything about that.”

“You’re an idiot, but you’ve still got brains, Rogers.” She pauses. “But I know I pushed you. I was so afraid you wanted to me someone I wasn’t, and I kept trying to prove you wrong. Maybe too hard. I’m not… a romantic. Like you are. And I’m not as… let’s say… in touch with my emotions?”

“I might be _too_ in touch with my emotions,” he admits.

“Maybe we can find a happy medium,” she suggests.

He stops eating and watches her. There’s a glint in his eye.

“Fuck you, Steve. I’m going to finish this pasta, so help me God.”

He laughs, and the sound seems to startle him. He coughs and quickly gets himself under control. “Hurry up, then.” His voice is cautious. He might be an asshole at times, she thinks fondly, but he’s also a gentleman.

In the end, she doesn’t finish the pasta.

* * *

They talk about it, eventually. What he went through when she was away. What they were like without each other. What they were like with each other. She convinces him to put reminders of his past in storage on the offchance that he won’t always be so angry with himself for almost giving everything up to go back. He gives her Peggy’s compass, saying he’ll rely on her to remind him of better things from now on, and she keeps the compass in her bedside drawer.

He doesn’t attend Tony’s funeral. As far as the world knows, he’s disappeared. She wonders how long that will last.

They talk. They talk so much that both of them would find it unbearable if it were anyone else. They talk about the future. Both of them are planners, and strategic thinkers, and both of them are willing to put the work in.

He gives the shield to Sam. With her help, he looks older. She’s not as convinced as he is that he should look older, but he wants a clean break, and no one will accept Sam as Captain America if Steve still looks like he could pick up the shield at any time. He wants to know who Steve is, separate from the shield. He’s determined, and she’s determined to support him.

He starts volunteering at different nonprofits. She has a harder time adjusting on that front, feels like she could do something more, and soon she’s freelancing on the side. When Steve finds out, she thinks they’re going to fight again, and she braces herself. But there are no harsh words, only Steve asking her what her plan is.

Their life changes more after that, and she thinks that both of them are happier. They don’t just take on jobs that Sharon is offered, they end up taking jobs of their own. Small things like recovering money stolen from the bodega down the street or big things like drug busts at the Port Authority.

They communicate more and fight less. They don’t break up again.

Eventually, Steve puts the pictures of the Commandos back up on the wall.

* * *

She knows he isn’t asleep. His thumb still brushes lightly along her hip. She shifts to face him.

“Why _did_ you come here?” she asks. “After Thanos. Why come back to the apartment?”

He’s quiet for a long time. They’ve talked about so many other things, but never this. “It was the only place I wanted to be,” he said at last. “It was the only place where I could pretend I hadn’t screwed up, that I still had a chance with you.” He pauses. “When I’m with you, it’s the only place I want to be. I was just too blind to see it for so long.”

She cups his cheek. “I’m so relieved you were the one who opened the door.”

He kisses her, long and slow. “I’m relieved you couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.”

She grins as he moves over her. “When I’m with you, it’s the only place I want to be.”


End file.
